Healthy Dinners

Healthy Soup Recipes

A steaming bowl of soup is comfort food in the purest sense. More comforting still, it's a worthy meal for anyone aiming to eat a little healthier, especially when the recipe puts vegetables front and center and uses plant-based protein, or lean meat, chicken, or fish. Even more substantial are thicker stews and chili, which don't require a side salad or a bit of bread to become a complete meal. Get ideas for liquid assets to eat in the evening on the following pages.

Trade wontons' traditional filling of pork for shrimp, and serve bok choy, full of disease-fighting phytochemicals, on the side.

This recipe is particularly healthful: It uses very little oil, low-sodium chicken broth, and a full head of cauliflower, which has plenty of antioxidant, cancer-fighting, and heart-healthy properties.

Full of flavor and bursting with compounds that can reduce cholesterol and improve immunity, mushrooms are nutritional champs. A bowl of this soup, made with several varieties of the fungus, is particularly curative on a cold evening.

A cool-weather crop, kale is readily available in supermarkets from fall through spring. This hardy green, a good source of calcium, vitamin A, iron, and phosphorus, lends its robust flavor to this satisfying soup.

Most Mediterranean cultures have some version of fish soup, originated by fishermen who cooked up the catch of the day. This take on the form uses shrimp exclusively, accompanied by potatoes, carrots, and Italian sausage.